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Survive against random events that occur every 10 seconds in a clocktower arena. Rather than the world becoming progressively more difficult, the player's abilities slowly dwindle as their curse grows stronger.

Reviews

Rated 3 / 5 stars2014-03-15 07:48:37

As far as this game is concerned, here are my thoughts. The controls themselves were functional, and I didn't have much trouble moving around, I was generally able to move around quite easily and I thought a triple jump was actually pretty cool, I thought it strange how powerful the character was in the beginning but then the first curse happened and I got the idea.

I thought the curse mechanic was an interesting concept, it's not something that I've seen that often, having the character lose power over time to increase difficulty. However, I do feel like this mechanic may actually work even better in a different type of game, maybe an adventure game, or it might work a bit better here if the character actually had more abilities or if the curse effect was more gradual and if the curse at maximum power still leaves the player with a viable character.

Also, I feel like the game itself isn't taking full advantage of the curse mechanic, I feel like there could be more design around the curse itself, maybe some rather simple but workable obstacles that make play specifically more challenging for a cursed player. I think certain enemy types becoming immune to the lowest level projectile is ok, but those statues also severely limit your ability to move around, especially at the highest curse level when you lose your double jump, you can't clear them anymore, so you just have to put up with them while something else is put on the screen. They do cover a good range as well, so that's a lot of spots on the screen for you to avoid now. However, if you do decide to make something immune to the weakest shot, maybe add the classic metallic sound or something that clearly indicates an ineffective attack, when I shot them with the weak projectile and it just passed through, my first thought was that it might be a bug or a glitch.

A few other things that could be considered are perhaps a few mechanics that help the player survive while cursed, like maybe when shots are make weaker, the player can charge them up for max-power shot. It would still let them remove statues, though at a slower rate, and it wouldn't really be a direct counter to the curse either. Maybe a charged shot could also propel the player upwards a bit, simulating a double jump, and letting them maintain at least some mobility. Maybe power-ups or conditions that can lower the curse by a stage might also be considered.

Regardless though, nice work so far, and good luck on the rest of the project. Hopefully, you'll start getting better reviews after you've made all the changes you were planning to make.

Rated 2.5 / 5 stars2014-03-14 03:12:36

This game has an interesting concept, but is marred with bad game design.

I like how the arena gives you a lot of area to run around in, however, even in the beginning, your normal jump isn't good enough to get to the upper levels. Furthermore, later on when you lose the ability to double jump, the entire upper area is now beyond your ability to reach, which make me wonder why you even included platforms beyond the bottom two.

I understand the interest in a game that reverses the normal progression, to start strong and become weaker, but the execution only really works to a point and even eventually breaks the game. As a game designer, you should be looking at the gameplay for the entire game. All the platforms should be accessible, even at your weakest state you should be able to jump up the platforms so you can attack enemies at the upper levels. Along those lines, you should try and prevent the only weapon in the game from becoming too weak to harm the statues that spawn. By making the gun do nothing, it just makes the player angry for learning to use it and being unable to even dodge the enemies since the game has already been taken away that ability. The gun should be able to do something if you can still shoot it, a player expects a projectile to do something to an enemy and when it doesn't, it breaks immersion and leaves the player with a bitter taste in their mouth and frustration at the game.

Rated 1 / 5 stars2014-03-13 23:11:03

Rated 0 / 5 stars2014-03-13 16:28:52

That played horrible. While the concept of having the character cursed and the difficulty increasing due to the curse getting stronger isn't bad it wasn't carried out very well. The first skill drop from hold X for rapid fire to press X for a single shot is far too steep for example. Instead a gradual decrease of fire rate before forcing you to press once for each shot would portray the concept much better. Also till the first skill drop you have to wait quite a lot (with that phase countdown) and all you do is hold X and move around a little. Far to boring and easy for the sudden increase of difficulty that follows.

And there is a reason why using either the z or y key is a very bad idea: next to qwerty keyboards there are also many qwertz keyboards out there. Either accept both z and y for the same input or avoid these keys altogether. After all you are looking for keys on the bottom left to be used along the arrow keys - not the letters on them.
Just because many games use these two buttons doesn't mean it's a good choice.

I see this is a beta so you should definitely work in internationally working buttons and a more gradual difficulty curve.